UNEP: The First 40 Years

In the early 1970s Nairobi was not the bustling metropolis it is today. When UNEP first arrived, barely 10 years had elapsed since Kenya had gained its independence from Britain. The city had grown up around the station that served the trains running on the famous ‘Uganda Railway’, built at the end of the 19th century from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. Photographs of Nairobi town centre taken soon after independence depict an almost&nbsp

In the early 1970s Nairobi was not the bustling metropolis it is today. When UNEP first arrived, barely 10 years had elapsed since Kenya had gained its independence from Britain. The city had grown up around the station that served the trains running on the famous ‘Uganda Railway’, built at the end of the 19th century from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. Photographs of Nairobi town centre taken soon after independence depict an almost pastoral scene with wide avenues and little or no traffic. When it was completed in 1973, the year UNEP came to town, the 30-storey-tall circular tower of the Kenyatta Conference Centre was the most visible landmark around, dominating the skyline. When out in the bush, you knew which way to head home.